Joey Feek
Joey Marie Martin Feek (September 9, 1975 – March 4, 2016) was an American country music singer and songwriter. From 2008 to 2016, the duo Joey + Rory comprised her and her husband, Rory Feek. Illness and death A few months later in May 2014, Joey was diagnosed with cervical cancer. After surgery and treatment, she was declared cancer free and did not receive any radiation or chemotherapy as her surgeons declared the surgery to be a success with the cancer removed with clean margins.16 In June 2015, after the family had finished filming their movie, Josephine, Joey was not feeling well again and sought medical advice. After undergoing further medical testing, it was discovered that the cervical cancer had returned and metastasized to her colon. In July 2015, Joey underwent a second surgery to remove a 3-inch tumor (recurrence of cervical cancer) that had invaded her colon and surrounding structures. The surgery was long and involved and required the use of inter-operative radiation as there were tumors the surgeon could not get clear margins on.19 Still, the medical team was hopeful for Joey's situation, and she recovered from surgery to continue on to endure an intense round of radiation and chemo in the summer of 2015.20 While undergoing treatment at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Joey would record hymns in their hotel room for the last CD the couple would create together, Hymns That Are Important to Us.21 In October 2015, Rory revealed in a blog post that Joey's cancer was terminal, and they were stopping all treatment as the chemo and radiation she had suffered through for the last few months were not working. The MRI "scans revealed that two quarter-sized tumors have already grown back in the same area that they had been blasting daily with chemo and radiation and that many more smaller tumors were visible all throughout the abdominal region. She said that the cancer was aggressively spreading".22 There were no more treatment options available and all there was left to do was keep Joey as comfortable as possible for the time she had left. On November 9, 2015, Rory announced via his blog THIS LIFE I LIVE7 that Joey had entered hospice care and they had decided to focus on living the time that Joey had left and not focus on the doctor's timeline for her survival.24 In November 2015, she began receiving home hospice care at her mother's home in Alexandria, Indiana, where she started to rapidly decline. Concerned that she did not have as much time left to live as the doctors had given her, Joey asked Rory if they could remain in Alexandria so she could die in the family home she was born in. Joey's older sister, Jody, a registered nurse, provided end-of-life support for her sister in conjunction with home hospice.7 In a November 2015 interview with The Tennessean, Joey stated that she was not angry with God, but was disappointed that after undergoing radical gynecological surgery to eradicate the cancer, it had returned as inoperable, unresponsive to treatment, and terminal. Rory continued to blog their experience, and the couple maintained a positive attitude and demeanor in her last weeks and months, and even when the situation looked grim they never gave up hope.2526272829 However, in January 2016, her morphine dose needed to keep the cancer pain under control had quadrupled. Rory revealed in blog post titled "When I'm Gone" that, following an emotional talk with Joey and reflecting that they had been able to spend Christmas and the New Year with their family and friends, as opposed to before when they were still more optimistic, they both had come to terms with and accepted her terminal diagnosis and worsening health.30 She was able to celebrate Indiana's second birthday and Valentine's Day with her and Rory, see them receive a Grammy nomination for the song "If I Needed You",31 and see and hear the final recording the duo would make together, an album of hymns that Joey had always wanted to make that debuted at number 8 on the Billboard 200 when it was released, and peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200 3 weeks after its release.3221 At the end of February 2016, after saying her goodbyes to her family and relatives, Joey told Rory that she was "ready to stop fighting", and that she was very tired and it was time for her to go as the "flowers would soon be blooming back in Tennessee".33 She then fell into a deep sleep for about one week, from which she was not expected to awaken.7 According to Rory and the attending hospice nurse, Joey was showing signs of organ dysfunction and shutdown due to the cancer continuing to metastasize.7 Rory posted a goodbye tribute video and continued to remain at his wife's side as she entered her last few days. The couple had reached every milestone that they had realistically set—Christmas and the New Year, Valentine's Day, the Grammys, and Indiana's second birthday.343536 She was pronounced dead on March 4, 2016, at approximately 2:30pm. She was 40 years old. Honoring her wishes, Rory held a private funeral on their farm in Tennessee and Joey was buried in the family cemetery on the Feek farm, where Rory's mother had been buried in 2014 and where Rory himself will be buried.Category:Deaths Category:2016 deaths Category:Deaths by cancer